Sociala sammanhang och individers handlande – hur hälsan formas i ett ömsesidigt samspel

Abstract

We describe how behavioral patterns important for health are shaped through a set of reciprocal and continuous interactions between the individual and legislature, commercial actors, social settings, and physiological processes. Economic, physical, and social conditions set boundaries for the individual scope of agency, but within that, individuals shape their choices and habits. What an individual decides to do in each situation has consequences physiologically, for others in the social setting, and, by extension, for commercial actors and legislature.

Because these processes are intertwined social change is possible through interventions on several levels. It is impossible for a single individual, or agent, to affect and control all conditions, but all acts and interventions matter and joint efforts can have a great effect, especially if they push in the same direction.